


The Price Of Getting What You Want

by greenkangaroo



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Growing Up, Leadership, Politics, PostWar, accountability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 08:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11619975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenkangaroo/pseuds/greenkangaroo
Summary: The night before the crucial vote to decide who will hold the office of Seventh Hokage, Chouji asks Naruto a question.





	The Price Of Getting What You Want

**Author's Note:**

> _the price of getting what you want is getting what you wanted._

“Are you ready for this?” 

It’s the way the question is phrased that brings Naruto up short and he looks from the street below to Chouji, leaning on the corner of the balcony railing. Inside the party is still going. The noise their friends make is muffled through the sliding glass door and the half-opened shades. 

“Ready for what?” Naruto asks. 

“The vote’s tomorrow.” Chouji crosses his thick arms over his broad chest. “This time tomorrow night, you could be Seventh Hokage.” 

The words send a tiny chill down Naruto’s spine. The thought always has- this pie in the sky goal, this impossible dream on a ladder he’s built with his blood, sweat and tears. To be recognized. To be acknowledged. To _be._

“Sure, I’m prepared.” Naruto says. 

“I didn’t ask if you were prepared.” Chouji replies. “You’re not.” 

Naruto straightens. “Chouji-” 

“No one is ever prepared, Naruto.” Chouji says. “Shikamaru wasn’t. Ino wasn’t. I’m not. Ready is one thing. Prepared is another.” 

They are strange words, from Chouji who only ever gives gentle criticism, bright encouragement. Naruto swallows the protest halfway up his throat- of course he’s ready- and he looks his friend up and down. 

Without Shikamaru on his right side and Ino to the left, Chouji seems somehow bigger, as though his longtime team mates shield all of what he is. 

Naruto realizes he is uncomfortable with this revelation. 

“I guess I don’t get the question,” Naruto says with a half-hearted shrug. 

Chouji’s snort isn’t amused. “Yes you do.” 

It’s such a neat deflection of a tactic that has worked for so long that Naruto is caught off balance and thrown even further by Chouji’s next question. “Do you know how many Hyuuga died in the Fourth war, Naruto?” 

“No,” Naruto says, becoming bewildered and feeling his hackles rise. “Why?” 

“How about how many Aburame? Or Shimura?” 

Naruto isn’t sure where this line of questioning is going but the strangeness of it- of its source, of its gruesome nature on such a happy night quickly going sour- makes his response sharp as he says, “No.” 

Chouji shrugs. “Neither do I.” 

Naruto thinks that he would really appreciate having the rug back under him as he throws his hands up and starts, “Then why-” 

“but I know how many Akimichi died.” 

The air is still and cold and quiet. 

“Thirty percent of our active duty ninja.” Chouji says, gazing out over the soft lights of Konoha. “Pretty good. Then again it took less than a week. Last war nearly reduced us by half.”

Naruto has never been good with abstractions or roundabout conversation and he is feeling that weakness. “Chouji…” 

“Dad’s in a bad way.” Chouji says abruptly and the words are tinny in Naruto’s ears. Everyone knows it but no one has said anything, afraid of what might happen if they crack the careful facade Chouji has built. “It’s a matter of time now.” 

“Chouji I’m sorry.” Naruto says. It sounds stupid and insincere but it’s all he can think to give, a boy without a father (Iruka? Kakashi? Jiraiya-) offering little comfort to a boy who has always had one. 

“One day- could be tomorrow, could be next week- I’m going to wake up,” Chouji’s thumb traced the swirl on his left cheek, “these will be blue, my father will be dead, and I will be Sixteenth Head of the Akimichi Clan.” 

A position he doesn’t want, and everyone celebrating knows it; a position which never should have been his, but for the decision of the Akimichi Elder Council and a brother who would rather wear an ANBU mask than a Patriarch’s hitai-ate. 

“What does that have to do with me?” Naruto asks. 

Chouji looks at him, really looks. Naruto wants to squirm under the gaze because Chouji has never looked at him like that before-like he is thinking about crumbling Naruto into dust and considering how best to get the job done. 

“I cast half a vote tomorrow,” Chouji says, “like Shino and Kiba.” 

Shikamaru and Ino will have full votes, as they are the Heads of their clans; Chouza’s will be a write-in from his bed. 

“Yeah, the system’s a bit convoluted,” Naruto says and he wants to fight the chatter he can feel bubbling up because this is strange it is painful in a way he never knew it could be. 

“I can’t waste my vote on someone who isn’t ready to accept the responsibility of my death and the death of a large portion of my clan to keep peace.” 

It’s the detonation tag Naruto had no idea was planted and it hits him with all the force of the most deadly attack Sasuke could ever dish out. 

He opens his mouth, and closes it. 

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he hears himself say and Chouji is already shaking his head. 

“It doesn’t have to be,” he says, “but it is. And it will be, for a long time, Naruto. You can’t change the world in a night, or a year. Change is slow, and it’s paid for in blood, and you’re going to spill more before you’re done.” 

Naruto wants to protest. 

He knows he can’t. 

Chouji glances through the glass and Naruto can tell by the softness of his gaze that he’s seen Shikamaru and Ino, the latter probably singing a song off key with Sakura, the former huddled in a corner with Shino and a bottle of booze. 

“Someday I’m gonna die so that they can live. So that you can live.” Chouji says quietly. “Are you ready for that?” 

Naruto runs a hand through his hair, laces his fingers and then unlaces them. 

He can’t lie. Not to Chouji. 

“I don’t know,” he says, “but I am going to find out.” 

Chouji smiles. It’s not his big somewhat reckless grin or his smaller pleasured look. It’s something altogether sadder and wiser. 

It’s the smile of a man who was once a boy who ate three pills that almost killed him. 

“Good enough,” Chouji says, and slips back into Tenten’s apartment as silently as he’d come. 

Naruto stays on the balcony for another half an hour. When he comes inside Chouji is gone- “To the hospital,” Sakura tells him with a shadowed look. 

Naruto sits on the couch and leans on Hinata, takes in her soft scent of violets and powder. She puts her arm around him with only a little hesitation. 

_Are you ready for this?_

“I hope so,” Naruto whispers, so soft that no one else can hear.

**Author's Note:**

> Naruto has a very fiery dream and I wonder if he ever thought, or if anyone ever told him, just how heavy the head that wears the crown feels.


End file.
